The Crunch: Customer traffic is vital to online retailers, but engaging that traffic with marketing techniques that boost conversions is becoming increasingly complex. Since 2007, AdRoll has combined effective methods of retargeting and prospecting to make the most of e-commerce web traffic, helping to increase customer bases and revenue. Retailers benefit from the customized, budget-friendly, and comprehensive solutions AdRoll provides to help them improve ROI and grow their market share. Through retargeting with on-site ads, SendRoll email ads, and prospecting with algorithms based on IntentMap, AdRoll is helping more than 35,000 marketers maximize their efforts and build brands — one returning visitor at a time.

Online retailers know that getting people to visit their websites is just the beginning. The next step is converting casual browsers into satisfied, brand-loyal customers — which is no easy task.

“Many websites and online companies already have a lot of traffic, and they may be doing search marketing, PR, or content marketing,” said Shane Murphy, VP of Marketing for AdRoll. “The challenge for them is turning that into revenue.”

With the addition of three new websites to manage just one month before Black Friday, Shiekh Shoes had traffic, but it also needed a new holiday promotion strategy to make the most of it. After a disappointing experience with its last digital marketing provider, and so close to the holiday season, Shiekh was hesitant to make any drastic changes that late in the game.

AdRoll launched its retargeting and prospecting tools on Shiekh Shoes brand websites and social media accounts just one week before Black Friday, and, despite a strict budget and timeline, the company saw a 20% lift in its ROI. Month over month, it has continued to see maximum performance out of its marketing dollars.

Through effective retargeting techniques and new customer targeting tools built on advanced algorithms and time-tested data sets, AdRoll’s platform is helping more than 35,000 growing companies like Shiekh Shoes turn website traffic and marketing campaigns into engaged customers and higher revenue.

Retargeting Makes the Most of Current Traffic Through Online Ads and Email Marketing

“We try to take the traffic that retail companies already have and maximize the revenue they can make from that traffic,” Shane said. “We do that by essentially putting ads in front of people based on what they’ve done on websites.”

Utilizing cookies and its network of more than 500 ad exchange partners, AdRoll Retargeting enables retailers to send follow-up ads — anywhere they go online — to the 98% of visitors who didn’t convert virtually anywhere they go online. After being reminded of their intentions or interest in a product, those visitors are more likely to return to the retailer’s website and convert.

Besides online ads, another retargeting capability AdRoll has added to its platform is email marketing through SendRoll. Based on a customer’s activity on a retailer’s website, SendRoll can select targeted ads to send directly to their email inbox.

With AdRoll’s Retargeting solution, Shiekh Shoes was able to improve its retargeting click-through rate (CTR) by 122%.

By incorporating marketing best practices, like segmenting visitors based on audience type, strategizing delivery time, and providing clear calls to action, AdRoll Retargeting and SendRoll work together to optimize a retailer’s engagement with visitors and turn them into customers.

Prospecting Feature Helps Identify and Target Potential Customers

While AdRoll helps retailers make the most of their current site traffic, it also offers advanced solutions for finding new customers with AdRoll Prospecting.

While all of AdRoll’s solutions utilize advanced technologies like machine learning, data is of particular importance to Prospecting since it eliminates the tedious work that comes with searching for potential customers.

“The strength of a product like AdRoll Prospecting has a lot to do with the data you have,” Shane said.

With Prospecting, AdRoll utilizes a data set known as IntentMap, the world’s largest advertising co-op with more than 1.2 billion digital profiles. “It’s basically online users’ intent to buy things,” Shane said. “We’re able to look at the people who are currently on the website and compare them to our data set to see if other people act like your current users and if they’re a good fit for your product. If so, we put an ad in front of them and try to get them to your site.”

Along the way, AdRoll has made its own improvements to the data set it uses for Prospecting. “We’ve been around for 10 years, so our data set is extremely strong,” Shane said.

After using AdRoll’s Prospecting tool, Shiekh Shoes not only experienced a 32% lower bounce rate compared to other methods, but it also lowered the prospecting cost per engaged visitor by 41%.

An Easy-to-Use Platform Designed to Help Brands Grow

With advanced tools like retargeting software and prospecting algorithms, it would be easy to assume AdRoll’s platform requires advanced user skills. But, from adopting industry norms to understandable terminology, to helpful pop-ups, AdRoll designed its platform to be user-friendly even for retailers who might be new to digital marketing.

AdRoll has three levels of support and resources for its customers. First, there’s a help center where those with specific questions can find answers. “We also have an academy, which consists of video tutorials, if you just generally want to get educated,” Shane said. And AdRoll provides live chat support, even to its smallest customers.

Shane Murphy, VP of Marketing for AdRoll, spoke with us about the impact of retargeting on marketing efforts.

AdRoll is particularly popular with small businesses in the retail sector looking for an intuitive retargeting solution. With no contract or minimum ad requirements, AdRoll’s Starter Plan provides an ideal solution for beginners who want a budget-friendly platform from which to set up and manage their own marketing campaigns. “With our main competitors, you can’t do that,” Shane said.

AdRoll also serves businesses that want a more robust set of features and services to improve their marketing game. The Advanced and Premium versions provide all the primary features plus the direct support of a vertical-specific account management team that provides expert advice in areas like ad design, campaign strategies, customer segmentation, and consumer behavior — the type of input that can help take growing businesses to the next level.

Because of how its tools facilitate the growth of a loyal customer base and revenue, many of AdRoll’s customers begin as small businesses with starter programs and graduate into managed service as their businesses benefit from retargeting and prospecting solutions.

Solve Marketing Problems with AdRoll’s Comprehensive Approach

Many retailers — just like Shiekh Shoes — find themselves frustrated with digital marketing providers who fail to meet their needs or provide a complete solution. The tendency for companies to split up to solve problems with individual tools has been a shortcoming of the digital marketing technology space.

“Marketers are frustrated there are now so many solutions they have to find and stitch together,” Shane said. “At AdRoll, we think about what it is they’re trying to do, and design a suite of products to do that.”

With over 35,000 customers across 150 countries, AdRoll has an abundance of success stories, but the company goes beyond raising a retailer’s retargeting success rate, improving prospecting of new customers, or increasing all-important ROI.

“We try to work with the customer on what their business goals are, and we try to optimize the campaign to achieve them rather than looking at one metric we try to move and judging ourselves on that,” said Shane.

By adopting that solutions-oriented approach, AdRoll has combined a comprehensive suite of advanced retargeting and prospecting tools within a centralized, easy-to-use platform designed to grow with retailers as they convert more traffic into customers — and those customers into revenue.

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Jessica Sommerfield is a contributing writer for DealCrunch with over seven years of experience with online publications in the personal finance sector and other consumer-focused niches. Her 13 years of experience in brick-and-mortar stores prior to her writing career have also given her an insider’s perspective on the unique challenges that the retail industry faces.

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